It is a study of musical life in late eighteenth-century Anglo-Indian society based on the unpublished correspondence of an extended network of families. Among the topics discussed are the transport, tuning and maintenance of instruments, the relationship between pupil and professional teacher, the conduct of the domestic musical soiree, the role of glee singing in courtship, and the musical education of children. It concludes with an examination of the musical lives of wealthy `nabobs` back in England.